Five dalits are lynched by a Hindu mob. Their alleged crime: skinning a cow. The reporters and analysts who express shock and outrage do not go beyond stating that the dalits were doing what they have been traditionally doing: selling the dead cow's

P. Chidambaram can rightly take credit for some of the biggest reforms of the nineties — in trade policy and income taxes. But the man who became the darling of the middle class in '97 himself takes a realistic view of the reforms to B.R. Srikanth.